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From the article: > Khosla bought the 53-acre property for $32.5 million in 2008 and kept the beach open to the public for two years despite the fact that he w
by jkyle 11y ago
From the article:
> Khosla bought the 53-acre property for $32.5 million in 2008 and kept the beach open to the public for two years despite the fact that he was paying $500,000 to $600,000 a year in maintenance costs and liability insurance.
> In 2010, after receiving county court orders -- which he believed were unfair -- to keep the beach access open 24/7 and charge visitors $2 for parking, Khosla ordered his property manager to close the gate permanently.
Seems like it's not so clear cut. I mean, he was eating 500-600k a year without complaint maintaining the property for the public. That's pretty generous. Seems it was a dispute over parking and fees...and considering how trivial $2 is compared to the 500k+ he was already paying it just feels like there's a bit more to this story than "Koshla is an evil 1%'r".
edit
So, it was exceptionally hard finding anything from Khosla himself on the issue. But I did find a few more details on why the beach was closed.
So, when he got the property he allowed the same access as the previous owners. Which was generally accessible during the day, but typically closed at night, during bad whether (often during winter), and when "inconvenient" which I assume is when property managers were on vacation or whatever. This level of access has been confirmed by the previous owners, the Deeney's, in their court testimony.
So, for some unknown reason, the county issued an order to the property manager for them to a) reduce parking fees to $2 (which is what they were in the 1970's) and b) to keep the gate open 24/7.
Khosla's managers/attorney's/whatever thought this was a significant historical change in access policy and so fought it, closing the property until the dispute was resolved.
I got all this from the following article: http://www.mercurynews.com/san-mateo-county-times/ci_26166316/khosla-sounds-off-martins-beach-slams-news-coverage http://www.mercurynews.com/san-mateo-county-times/ci_2616631...
- dchichkov 11y agoWell, I guess putting armed guards to block access [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinod_Khosla#Martin.27s_Beach_dispute http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinod_Khosla#Martin.27s_Beach_d...] paying to layers and financing black PR campaigns is expensive. No surprise it could be $500-600k. Or did he actually spend it on cleaning the beach? edit: Or had this $500-600k number been pulled out of thin air, just like 70% number?
- jkyle 11y agoAccording to the article, he spent the 500-600k in the years prior to the dispute when it was open for maintenance and liability insurance. The dispute was over a court order to also provide parking at a required rate of $2. (just repeating the article that was linked, I'm no expert on the legal details of this case)
- genericuser 11y agoYes but any of that 500-600k cost which was actually required of him could have easily been known by him at time of purchasing the property. Saying you don't want to pay the required upkeep on something because it only benefits others and not you personally after you get it is pretty assholish.
- jkyle 11y agoI updated my original post, but the case was never about that expense or about the level of access historically provided. It was about a court order that required a change to the level of access and support in comparison to what had been provided by him and all previous owners.
- genericuser 11y agoIn that it told him he could ONLY charge $2 for parking vs the presumably free (EDIT: incorrect assumption on my part, as previous owners also charged a fee, but I can't find any indication that he was being limited to a lower fee than they charged) parking on the road people had been getting with previous owners.... Effectively the court was allowing him to recoup some of his cost with parking, just not at the rate he wanted. Edit: Oh your original post referred to one up several more levels, when I wrote this response I thought it referred to the post I replied to, but noticed no significant modifications.
- jkyle 11y agoYeah, it also required 24/7 access 365 days a year. Which was above and beyond what everyone else had provided in the past. It also noted that, at the time, the area's use had declined significantly due to smelt fishing decline which is why the previous owner sold it. So, when the dispute occurred, he'd been providing the same access as ever when a mandate came out of the blue saying he had to provide a significantly higher level of access than was historically required and whatever extra costs that might incur on a beach that was largely unused at the time overall and during the periods of closer in particular. So he was like "wtf, why?" in a very legal sense (the only sense that would work in legal disputes). And _only_ after the case went viral as some kind of down with the 1%'rs! rally cry did people actually start bothering to go visit the site...to make a point. I'm sure the novelty will wear off and then they'll be some property manager that has to sit up there through the night and winter for....nobody.